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Shannon McNeeley

Dr. Shannon McNeeley received her doctoral degree in Environmental Change and Sustainability Science (ecological anthropology, ecology, climatology) from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in the interdisciplinary Resilience and Adaptation Program as an NSF IGERT Fellow then as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Her doctoral research focused on climate variability and change impacts, vulnerabilities, and adaptive capacity of indigenous people (Athabascan Indians) in the remote, rural Interior region of Alaska. This was in close collaboration with tribes, state, and federal agency partners. She first began working for the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in 2000 as an associate scientist before starting her doctoral degree in the fall of 2004. Her work is interdisciplinary and cross-cultural incorporating the social and natural sciences in order to understand human-environment relationships and how people are impacted by and respond to environmental change. She has been involved in climate change education and research for over 16 years. Most recently, as a postdoctoral fellow at NCAR, her research focused on water scarcity and sustainability in the context of climate variability and change and the Yampa/White Basins region of northwest Colorado. Then as a research fellow at the School of Natural Resources and Environment the University of Michigan, Dr. McNeeley co-wrote the Adaptation chapter of the upcoming U.S. National Climate Assessment and led research on climate adaptation actions implemented across the globe through the Global Environmental Facility financing mechanisms for developing and Least Developed Countries. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the DOI-sponsored North Central Climate Science Center at Colorado State University. In addition to continuing research on vulnerability and adaptation in water resource management, this will also entail working to build the capacity of the NCCSC to conduct and support regional assessment on climate change adaptive capacity and decision making.